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FISC 2005 review

I just wrapped up 2 days here at the Federal Information Security Conference, hosted by the Federal Business Council (http://www.fbcinc.com/fisc/). It was a great conference, geared towards United States Department of Defense personnel and the industry that supports and participates in the military missions here in the Colorado Rocky Mountain region. Topics covered some basic introductory sessions into InfoSec fundamentals up to specific and complex presentations, such as FISMA and the upcoming IPv6 requirements for the national defense industry.

For those of you that aren't familiar with the Rocky Mountain region, we have one of the largest concentrations of Federal employees, military personnel, and government AND civilian staff in the continental US outside of Washington D.C. The region is host to:
- Cheyenne Mountain Air Station, home of NORAD
- United States Air Force Academy
- Fort Carson Army base, home of the 7th Infantry Division, 10th Special Forces, and several other units significant in the war effort in Iraq
- Peterson Air Force Base, home of Northern Command and Air Force Space Command
- Schriever Air Force Base, home of Space Warfare and the Joint National Integration Center, and home to many war games and battle simulation programs

Many of the Air Force units have significant IA and IS requirements, Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman all have a major presence in the region. That is the reason the conference gears towards defense industry, but it is open to whomever wants to attend (and pay, hehe.)

Solid training sessions included information on the work NIST is doing with PDA Forensics, on the federal biometrics programs for Personnel Identity Verification (see FIPS 201 http://csrc.nist.gov/piv-project/ and HSPD 12 http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0040827-8.html), and web application attacks (SPIDynamics - this is old, but still good). Also went to a very engaging introduction and discussion of IDS by Dr. Michael Staggs...if you ever get the chance to hear him speak, I'd recommend it highly, he's great.

There was also the usual load of crap sessions, including one that many of us walked out of as the speaker had the personality of a wet sock. He read his frickin' slides, didn't look at the audience, and made me put away my Ambien prescription for a month. I won't name and shame him; the guilty party knows who he his.

So I got some sh!tty tschotskies (sp), some valuable material to help me go look up stuff, and met some decent people. Oh, and got out of the office for 2 days...gotta love that part.

FBC Inc. also puts on the FIAC, a larger but similar conference in Washington DC, for those IA/IS weenies in the region. One of these days I just might make it to one.

"Data is not necessarily information. Information does not necessarily lead to knowledge. And knowledge is not always sufficient to discover truth and breed wisdom." --SpafAnyone who is capable of getting themselves made president should on no account be allowed to do the job. --Douglas Adams (1952-2001)
"...people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right." - Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

Quitmzilla is a firefox extension that gives you stats on how long you have quit smoking, how much money you\'ve saved, how much you haven\'t smoked and recent milestones. Very helpful for people who quit smoking and used to smoke at their computers... Helps out with the urges.

Ahhh yes, Colorado Springs, CO. Ol' Horsey has been out there a few times. You mentioned NORAD which overlooks a very nice resort called the Cheyenne Mountain Resort. At night you can see the pretty antenna farm light up the sky atop of NORAD. Hehe. Anyway, old memories...

IPv6 is not a Microsoft incarnation. As Phissy has noted, the IETF drafted the standard back when the fear of running out of IPv4 addresses was floating around. NAT and CIDR of course have changed all this.

Our scars have the power to remind us that our past was real. -- Hannibal Lecter.
Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful. -- John Wooden